Big Bang Prepares for 2012

Annual solstice celebration hits GLC on Dec. 21, one year before the end of the Mayan Calendar

The Big bangThis will be the final year for the Big Bang winter soltice celebration. The event was set up as a countdown of sorts for the end of the Mayan Long Count Calendar in 2012. Once the calendar ends, well, what's the point of counting down any longer?

Everyone beware, for 2012 is rapidly approaching!

Dec. 21, 2012 is the projected end of the world, if you're to believe such doomsayers as Roland Emmerich, via his so-terrible-it's-great movie about the year in question. The earth will undergo massive geological shifts that will force once-dormant super volcanoes to erupt, blanketing the sky in ash and permanent darkness, inspiring an instantaneous melting of the polar ice caps and on and on until the entire human population is a depleted, exhausted crew.

But if you listen to the people who take 2012 — and the end of the Mayan Long Count calendar— seriously, Dec. 21 will mark the beginning of a new cycle in time — a time for renewal and rebirth.

To celebrate the one-year mark until that date, Marie Fortin, a.k.a. Miss KosmiK, is throwing the fourth annual Big Bang Winter Solstice Celebration at the GLC, part birthday party, part celebration in anticipation for the event one year away. Regardless of the reason, Fortin says the night exists as a way for people to "let go" through the power of dance.

"When you really let go, it feels like you have answers coming to you," Fortin says. "You think of things that you might not have thought of, or you find an epiphany. Things like that happen often. (Dance) is kind of like a medicine."

Fortin will be spinning, along with Vancouver psy DJs Briden and Heidrogen, complemented by psychedelic video displays by Elfmaster and Heidrogen.

But this will not be your regular rave. This is an intentional event, a spiritual gathering designed to inspire insights through. It's awash in neo-hippie and New Age mythos, celebrating the cosmos and its correlation with the self and with the collective.

The night will begin with an opening ceremony, including live instruments "to bring intention into the night."

"That's the idea behind this party is to come and have an intention," Fortin says, "Usually, it can be as general as peace on Earth, and you can dance, be happy and wish for peace everywhere. Or you can also wish for health and things like that. It's about bringing intention into our dance and dancing for a purpose, not only dancing for hitting on the guy next to you. It's to celebrate," she says.

Fortin's was born on Dec. 22, which has inspired her to take as her mission spreading awareness about the positive aspects and spiritual benefits of 2012.

"Being born on that date, and wanting to have a party anyway, and being an event organizer, and believing in the evolution of consciousness that way," she says. "I don't see it as an Armageddon or end of the world at all. It's an opportunity for each one of us to see more of who we are and of our potential."

But people hoping to take part of a Really Big Bang in Whistler next year will need to organize their own. Fortin says this will likely be the final Big Bang celebration because she'll be heading down to Mexico next year to ring in the new calendar as close to the Mayan culture as possible.